Love, I came so late to know You.
Beauty, always fresh,
Yet older than the world,
I came so late to love You.

I was looking for You
In all the wrong places.
I was looking for You
In flowers and in faces.

I became so ugly
Looking for You
Outside in the lovely
Things. They aren't You.

Things that are lovely
Only because of You.
Things that are ugly
Because they lack You.

Yet through my closed ears
You announced yourself.
You opened these ears
Deafened by too many answers.

You shone like a sun
Burning away the blindness
Of these eyes. Eyes drunken
By a lustful chase for beauty.

You breathed on me
And my breath returned.
The stench of my dead soul
Washed away. I'm alive!

Here You were
All this time
Hidden, quiet, soft
In this heart of mine.

Here You were
Waiting for me
To clear my eyes
To open my ears

Here You were
Hidden in plain sight
Speaking to my heart:
"There is so much more!"

Missing you feels like swallowing a bag of nails.
it ******* hurts.

Shame is this thing in my hand
Shame is my heart
Shame is this part if me
That I can't control
Shame is this thing in my lap
Shame are my eyes
Shame's none the wiser
Than I claim to be
And I am ashamed
I'm ashamed of me

I'm spinning circles in my bedroom
And my hair is now a halo
I'm pretending I'm a dancer in my bedroom
And I am now

I'm singing songs inside my bedroom
And in my arms I hold a child
I'm pretending I'm a mother in my bedroom
Though I'm wild

I'm breaking bricks inside my bedroom
And on my face are beads of sweat
I'm pretending I'm a miner in my bedroom
And I fret

I'm writing poems in my bedroom
And in my heart there is a boy
I'm pretending I'm in love in my bedroom
And my heart is full of joy

I'm sitting at a wooden desk
A quill in a *** as black as pitch
And with feathers as soft as sea water
The desk with peeling white paint
Has drawers
With crooked silver sconces
To hold the candle stumps
At night, as I write
I use parchment, not paper
Stroking the rough, grainy surface of it
Waiting for my fingers to go numb
In front of me a window
Of warped and misty glass
But I throw it open to feel the air
As its wafts, heavy and salty
Past the curtains I've hung there
And clings to my face and neck
I pretend I am the sea
Clasping the quill in my hand
Freshly dipped into its ***
I write in thin, twisting letters
I imagine they are grape vines
Twisting through an orchard
Fat with grapes
Purple from the sunrise
And these letters make words
So sweet
I can almost taste the wine on my tounge